The prevailing admission process that is being adopted to offer admissions in National Institutes of Technology (NITs) might undergo a major change from the next year onwards. It is expected that only the JEE Main scores will be taken into consideration. A panel appointed by the government is likely to issue an order i.e. to do away with the weightage given to marks obtained in board examinations.

Devang Khakhar who is the director of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and a member of the panel in a PTI Report said, “We would be recommending scrapping of weightages given to board marks."

Final Decision is expected in the next month

The final decision regarding the same is expected to be issued early next month when human resource development minister Smriti Irani chairs a meeting of the NIT council, which would take a call on the committee's recommendations.

On Going Process of Admission

As per the ongoing process of offering admission, 40 percent weightage is given to board marks and 60% to the JEE Main score for admission into NIT. This initiative was undertaken under the aegis Kapil Sibal- Union Minister of Ministry of Human Resource Development. It was under him only that the two tier examination system was implemented for admission to IIT’s i.e. JEE Main and JEE Advanced.

Reason behind implmentation

Earlier CBSE failed to publish the JEE-Main ranking list on time for the counselling and completely put the blame on the state boards stating that they delayed in submitting the marks of Class 12. As a consequence of this the admission to the IIT’s kept on delaying which further caused anxiety among students and parents.The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was blamed for this reform that failed to achieve the desired goals.

Further Devand added, “It was felt that the reform would put an end to the menace of coaching, but on the contrary, more students went for coaching to better their scores in board exams.”

When this initiative will be launched officially, the panel is likely to suggest securing 60 percent marks or 70 percentile in Class 12 whichever is lower, as the criteria for eligibility of a candidate to appear for the examination conducted for admissions to the premier technical institutes.